


Lucky, Lucky, Lucky

by BaggerHeda



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Discussion of past relationship, F/F, a little bit canon divergent, now it's even more canon divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 03:59:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11820774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaggerHeda/pseuds/BaggerHeda
Summary: “So tell me,” said Waverly, with gentle eyes, “if it’s not too awful to tell me … how did you come to be married, of all things?”Nicole drew a deep breath, and found that she could. She could tell the tale without rancor. So she started. “It was 2013.”---After reconciliation, Waverly asks Nicole about her marriage.Story takes place in the future, following the reveal in 2x10.





	Lucky, Lucky, Lucky

It was an achingly beautiful day, one of those early spring days where the sky is so blue it feels like it will pierce you right through the eye. Nicole drew a deep breath, exhaled gustily. Still plenty of snow on the nearby mountains, low enough here that the side of the road was entirely clear. It felt good to be alive.

She turned when she heard the squeak-BANG of the screen door behind her. Waverly had emerged from the main building, coffee in one hand, tea in the other. “Sandwiches will be out in a minute,” she said. Nicole’s heart leapt. God, it was good to see her happy again. Easy.

“I’ll get ‘em. Thanks,” said Nicole, accepting the coffee cup.

“They’ll bring it out. Sit. You’re always fetching things for us.”

Nicole sat, unprotesting. It was really too lovely to argue about a single damn thing in the world. It was a rare free day for the two of them, a day off and no obligations, and they’d taken a drive. Just a day trip out of Purgatory, to enjoy themselves and maybe have a little time not thinking about the strangeness that seemed to form the low rumbling background of their lives.

They had stopped to eat at this small roadhouse, a ramshackle single-room affair and a tiny back kitchen, with a few indoor tables, an outdoor patio, and a rep for good chow among local law enforcement. They had the place to themselves, but Nicole, with her cop’s eye, could see that this place would get crowded on weekends, attracting bikers as well – usually not a problem, occasionally a problem, but any place with motorcycles in front generally meant good food inside. Looking at the gravel lot, Nicole could practically see the chrome and bug-spattered windshields, smell the dirt and oil. She idly considered getting another motorcycle. Maybe this summer, she thought.

Waverly was speaking again, her voice light and airy. “Thanks for bringing us out here. It’s a nice drive. A nice day.”

Nicole smiled. “Sure is, isn’t it?”

Waverly looked around. “Trees are gonna leaf out soon. I can feel it.”

Nicole could feel it, too. She’d lived a lot of places and had seen spring in a lot of ways. In the humid Deep South, it came so much earlier, bringing rain and the scent of every blossom, heavy and sweet enough to choke you with its effusive glory. In the Texas hill country (her happiest spring, and childhood memories) it meant bluebonnets, endless in their rolling color. In the desert Southwest, it meant little, the only change seemed to be the direction of the wind. And in the Second City it meant the last of the dirty snowpiles finally melting away from the curb, the rise of the urban hubbub. Well, and the wind off the lake. When wasn’t that a thing.

Here, spring would come later than all those others. The promise of that riot of green, so close now, felt like the earth holding her breath, or humming a note just beyond hearing. Yes, Nicole could feel it. It would be her first spring in Purgatory, and she couldn’t wait to see the new-leafed forests. She couldn’t wait to see the mountains shed their heaviest white cloaks all the way into summer. She knew she was going to love it all.

She stirred her coffee, nodding. “Yep. Me, too.”

Her mind strayed back to her worst, or maybe second-worst, spring. The one where Shae had left, two years ago. She’d thought the distant, deep-dwelling sorrow had been thoroughly scattered by now, mulched under, put to rest. Until recent events had brought it back again.

***

There hadn’t been yelling. There’d been surprisingly little crying. Only a heavy, slow sadness that lay over their apartment once it became plain that the spark between them, flash-quick, had burned out so completely and that neither of them were going to give the effort to rekindle it. It was Shae who had given voice to it first, who was brave enough to call the separation permanent. Nicole knew it to be true the moment she heard it, and almost felt ashamed for the relief she felt.

When Shae left for the last time, plucking her key off the keyring and laying it in Nicole’s palm, placing a soft kiss on her cheek – even then, Nicole didn’t cry. She’d sat on the sofa with her head in her hands, motionless, for an hour. Then she rose and found her textbooks. She had an exam the next week.

Her final month at university had felt like sleepwalking, but she still graduated with honors. Then, she packed up her few belongings and prepared for a whole new life in a whole new place. It was the challenge of the academy that brought a new spark to Nicole Haught’s life, and she had left her sorrow behind her.

***

Waverly laid a hand over hers, warm and calm. “Are you doing OK? You look a little sad.”

“Mmm, maybe. Some. We’ve had a rough go of it.” Nicole smiled over at Waverly. “I am so glad we’re alright, talking again.”

Waverly smiled back. “Yeah, me too.” They sat there holding hands as the server, in a faded red-checked apron and her hair in a simple ponytail, brought out their food. After she’d left, Waverly asked, “So what are you thinking about?”

“Shae.”

To judge by the raised eyebrows, the younger woman clearly hadn’t been expecting _that_. “Oh. Um. Oh.”

Nicole jumped to reassure her. “Oh, Waves, no. Not like that. I’m not sad ‘cause of missing her or anything, I’m just a little sad ‘cause it caused you pain. I never want to hurt you, baby. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, now,” said Waverly. “No more sorrys. We had our sorry party and we’re done now. Remember?”

“Okay,” replied Nicole, a wry quirk on her lips. “I might say it again, though.”

Waverly smiled, a small smile, then frowned. “I don’t want to pry into your history.”

Nicole sighed. “We all have history. You’re just finding out more about mine. I don’t mind telling you. Anything.”

“It’s just … I know I'm not your first.”

“Yeah,” said Nicole, “but I was kinda hoping you could be my last.” By some miracle, the line landed lightly instead of with a thud. Waverly laughed, and Nicole gave her cheesiest smile.

“So tell me,” said Waverly, with gentle eyes, “if it’s not too awful to tell me … how did you come to be married, of all things?”

Nicole drew a deep breath, and found that she could. She could tell the tale without rancor. So she started. “It was 2013. I don’t know if you remember, Waves, or even if it was a big deal up here, but it was huge where I was and with the people I ran with. There was the big Supreme Court decision end of June, United States v. Windsor, and it said that legal same-sex marriages in any state were valid in all fifty states. Overturning DOMA, a huge step that way, at least.” Nicole paused, smile growing wide with the recollection. “So much celebration. There are people just a little older than we are who thought they would never, ever see it in their lifetime. I knew some couples that were waiting to get married, they wouldn’t do it until they could move and still have their marriage recognized. So there was a stampede on the courthouse after that decision came down.” Nicole was young enough that she knew the bad old days before the gradual, accelerating loosening of same-sex marriage laws largely as history and hearsay. She also knew how important it was to some of the older members of her circle of friends. How incredible it was to not have to settle for a domestic partnership that maybe you could register in your city, or to hope that you might get lucky and find a progressive employer who would allow you to put your partner on your insurance. These things were important, and Nicole was aware enough to be glad of the changes that had been coming in recent years.

Waverly nodded. “I remember that. I remember a lot of people thought it was kinda silly that it was still even a thing.”

“Well, amen,” said Nicole. “Anyway, that was what was going on. Meanwhile, Shae and I had planned a vacation to go rockclimbing at Red Rocks in Nevada in July. We’d been, um, serious for a month or two.”

“Wait,” interrupted Waverly, “Nevada? Isn’t it super freakin’ hot there in summer?” Hitting the unimportant detail, avoiding the super-obvious one: Nicole gave an inward chuckle at the younger woman’s strategy, which was not all that strategic.

Outwardly, Nicole groaned. “GOD, yes. I tried to warn her, she wouldn’t listen.” There had been a sign when they left the airport that had displayed the current temperature. 111°F/44°C, and not yet noon. The numbers were burned into Nicole’s memory, as well as how much effort it had been to bite back the ‘I told you so’ that wanted to fly out of her mouth.

“We went then, though,” continued Nicole, “because it was what fit into our schedules. I was still in school so I was on break, she was starting a new program in August, so July was the only free time. We went and it was hotter’n all get-out that week.” Oh, how Nicole remembered that heat, never adjusting to it. How stepping out of air conditioning always felt like walking into an oven, how it would hit you over the head like a hammer. A vile, hot hammer. “Anyway, the first couple of days we’d get up super-early and hit the routes we’d planned, but we’d have to quit pretty early in the day when it got to be too much. I mean, look at me. You can tell how badly I’d sunburn, yeah?”

“My poor lobster baby,” crooned Waverly.

That made Nicole laugh a bit. “Yeah. So I was tryin’ real hard not to get burnt to a crisp or heatsick, I insisted we go back to the hotel. We’d nap, then go hit the casinos or the clubs in the evening. At first we stuck near our hotel, on the west side. The third night, we took the shuttle down to the Strip. I couldn’t believe how wild it was even on a weeknight. Never seen anything like it, Waves.” She didn’t know how to describe the masses of people that crowded the sidewalks, a herd in constant motion, bathed in the light and noise of the Strip. The glare of the neon marquees, the riotous noisy clang of gaming pouring out of every door. It had been both thrilling and terrifying, and she wasn’t any small-town hick. Nicole recalled standing on one of the above-the-boulevard walkways and spinning, spinning, spinning in manic glee, arms raised over her head. The air finally cooling down, the raucous city roaring all around her, she felt nothing but alive and ready for anything. Her friends had grabbed her and dragged her into whichever nearby casino, laughing the whole way.

Waverly asked, “Was it your first time there? In Las Vegas?”

Nicole nodded. “Yep. The only time I’ve ever been there. But our friends, Dar and Joanne, they’d been lots of times, so they were the ones who kept deciding where we should go next.” They hadn’t been Nicole’s friends, not really, they were Shae’s, and Shae had been the one to keep them afterwards. Nicole, astonished, still felt a tiny twinge of jealously when she thought about it. She went on. “We were at the tables at Planet Hollywood, and suddenly Dar comes up saying she’s got tickets to the Britney show and it’s in half an hour. Apparently it was really hard to get last minute tickets to that show. That’s when Jo started saying we were lucky together and we should get married. We were like, shut up.”

Waverly’s eyebrows shot up at that, but she said nothing.

Nicole pressed on, “The show was awesome. Completely awesome. I mean … it was Britney. By the time it ended, I think we had all pretty much decided we were going to party until the break of day. Vegas is just kinda like that. I was pounding Red Bull and vodka by then.” She’d never felt drunk that night, not from the alcohol; it was the craziness all around her that had been making her giddy and high. At least that’s how it felt in her memories. But judgement isn’t the strongest suit of intoxicated persons. Vegas relies upon that fact.

Waverly made an adorable ‘yuck’ face. “Bleh, I can’t stand Red Bull.”

“Neither can I, but they don’t have Beaver Buzz down there,” said Nicole. “Gotta make do. Anyway, we jumped from casino to casino for a while, having fun. Everyone kept winning, or at least staying even, and Jo kept calling us lucky, lucky, lucky. Eventually we ended up at the Flamingo. I won big on slots, payout was a bit over thirty-two thousand US, and we were just about losing our minds.” Another vivid memory: the final seven clicking into place on the third barrel of the slot, how brightly the lights flashed and the music blared, Shae clutching her arm in a deathgrip, squealing and jumping up and down, the floor attendant immediately at her elbow, instructing her on how to collect the payout. Gambling wasn’t the adrenaline Nicole chased, but in that moment, she could entirely see how it could hook you in. The thrill was undeniable.

Waverly let out a soft whistle, saying, “Wow.” Nicole chuckled to herself, knowing that she was doing the currency conversion in her head. It wasn’t quit-your-job-forever money (unless your job sucked rocks) but it was a lot.

“We _really_ couldn’t get Jo to shut up after that,” said Nicole. “About the marriage thing.” There had been a little dance to accompany the hazing, as Nicole recalled, which evolved in complexity as the night went on. The only detail she remembered was a prodigious booty shake, left-right-left that went along with a chant of get!-you!-married! She shook her head. “Shae and I ditched the two of them a while after that, they were okay to get back to the hotel on their own, so we took off. Later, we were walking back down the Strip, it was about an hour before dawn, about the time we would have been getting up to go climbing if we hadn’t been out all night. We were in front of the Bellagio fountains, and she just kinda turned to me, and said, ‘Do you wanna?’ And I said yes. I mean, it was a little more serious than that, but not much. That was how we decided to get married. After a fun all-nighter in Las Vegas.” Of course there was more to it, but Nicole wasn’t going to tell Waverly unless asked directly. They weren’t the sort of details about a past lover that you shared with your current lover. About how she had melted into the kiss, about how the world had been spun up and infinite in its possibilities, about how beautiful the woman’s eyes had been. Those were details that belonged to a world that didn’t exist any more.

Waverly was slowly nodding her head. What she was agreeing to, Nicole couldn’t begin to guess. Finally, Waverly spoke so, so softly. “It really doesn’t sound like you. The you I know, I mean.”

Nicole dropped her head, unsure how to react. “I know. It doesn’t sound like me at all. I’m sorry, Waverly.”

Waverly reached for her hand, caught it between the two of hers. “Don’t be. Don’t be sorry. I asked. I wanted to know.”

After a lengthy pause, Nicole sighed. “Not the smartest thing I ever did, that’s for sure. But even now I can’t say it was a terrible mistake. It was just … so … incredibly not well thought out.” The pain she used to feel, the pain in her chest once so present but brief, had faded into something dull and tolerable. So small as to be next to nothing, really. Her past was a thing she could live with; it didn’t drive her. “I loved her, still do in a way. And it kinda made sense at the time. I just forgot to listen to the part of myself that was telling me it wasn’t a forever kind of thing.”

Waverly was still nodding slowly, pensive but attentive. Nicole looked in her eyes, saw encouragement to continue. She went on, “I think it took longer to find an open wedding chapel than it took to actually do it.” Like many tourists who assume the Vegas chapels are open twenty-four hours a day, they’d been surprised to find that most of them close for a few hours on weeknights. They waited out the 7 a.m. opening on a roughly painted bench, still dressed in their evening going-out clothes. Nicole had married in an elegant light blue button-down shirt, black jeans, and lightweight dress boots. It took maybe forty minutes. “We were married by breakfasttime. We finally went back to the hotel, gave Dar and Joanne the news, and then we … went back to the room and, well …” Nicole blushed, hoping Waverly wouldn’t make her say it. The implication was obvious enough.

Waverly didn’t make her say it. “I gotta admit. I am part raging jealousy and part well you had _better_ have.”

Nicole studied the younger woman’s face, saw truth. It was more quip than actual jealousy, she saw; Waverly understood. Yes, the sex had been awesome. It had to be, even if – _especially_ if – she’d been in her early twenties and a little bit reckless and a lot foolish and married at the spur of the moment. It was a marriage that could not have existed that many years previous, and she’d wedded a woman who was smart and smooth and made her happy and treated her like she was the most beautiful thing in the world. Of course it was awesome. Giddy elation carried them along before eventually falling into exhausted boneless sleep for two hours, only to wake and begin again. They’d finally made it downstairs for a late dinner. Nicole gave a hesitant smile, wondering how much of these memories were visible in her eyes. She knew how she looked at Waverly now. She wasn’t sure if this story of the past held a similar echo, or if Waverly would recognize it. She hoped not. Finally, she murmured, “Okay.”

Waverly smiled encouragingly, and said, “Go on.”

Nicole paused. What was Waverly looking for, what was she asking? She decided not to skip ahead, to pick up the story in the same place. “Anyway, the following day, we went back to our rock climbing. Had a couple of super days doing that. And then, the last full day we were there, that’s when I fell. Doing something totally stupid that I knew better not to do, but that’s how shit like that happens, usually. Jacked up my shoulder really bad.” The sickening sensation of the tearing ligament … god, the memory of it still made Nicole want to puke. She knew her injury was from her own stupidity. She’d been running on endless coffee and adrenaline, and the bed hadn’t been used for sleeping. She’d been climbing far less rested and far more reckless than she ever should have been. It had caught up with her, and she was damn lucky it hadn’t been worse.

“Oh,” came Waverly’s voice, so tiny. Nicole recalled one time when they were lying together, Waverly’s fingertips tracing the incision scar, asking how she got it. At the time, Nicole had said she’d had shoulder surgery, no other details.

“Yeah. They couldn’t do much for me in the urgent care place they took me, just put me in an immobilizing sling and gave me enough drugs to travel home. That flight was a whole bunch of not-fun, let me tell you. I had my surgery two weeks later.” She sighed. “It took some time and a bunch of PT, but it’s healed up well, it doesn’t bother me much now.”

Waverly leaned forward, bringing their heads close together. Her face was as serious as Nicole ever saw it. In a low voice, she said, “So … can I ask? Why did you and she break up?”

Ah. So that’s what she was after. Nicole answered slowly, considering her words carefully. “We didn’t break up so much as we … just … drifted apart. We didn’t even make it a year.” She frowned.

Waverly’s face, no, her entire body was still. “I’m sorry, baby.”

Nicole wondered if she was disappointed at the lack of a war story, that she couldn’t tell of a bitter dispute or a stormy parting. But she couldn’t. It hadn’t been hostile. In the end, it hadn’t been much of anything at all.

After a long pause, Nicole knew that Waverly was waiting out the silence, so she went on. “I was sad for a while, kind of at loose ends. She moved out about a month before I graduated, spring of the following year. It was over by that time anyway. And I think we both kinda wanted to get out of Chicago. Things felt a little too … heavy there. She took a position on the east coast, near Boston. Now, she’s doing really well for herself, getting her career under way. And I came up here, enrolled in the academy.”

Waverly finally graced her with a little smile. “That’s a big move.”

Nicole smiled back, a ghost of a smile. “A whole new country, even. Because of the thing I told you with my parents and … well.” She gave a little bark of a laugh, bitter-sharp, surprising herself. Waverly closed the distance between them, and hugged her tightly around the neck. Nicole couldn’t help but lean in and hold her just as tightly, glad for the support. “Then Nedley recruited me to come to Purgatory, and then … then I found you. How could it be anything but a happy ending?”

They kissed then, for the first time since sitting down at that battered picnic table in front of that battered roadhouse. It was a warm kiss, full of relief. Relief that they had found their way through difficult times. Relief that they were okay.

They sat quietly for a little while. Nicole picked at her sandwich, mostly untouched because she had been talking the whole time. She wasn’t really hungry, and she was still deep in thought. So she cautiously took up her story once more. “Shae and I still talk, you know. We’re still friends, wanted to leave it at friends. We just don’t talk all that often, need to keep that space. You understand?”

Waverly frowned a bit. She couldn’t hide that it still bothered her some. “Yeah, but. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Nicole sighed, “I wanted to, you know.”

Waverly pressed with that soft voice she had sometimes. “So, why didn’t you?”

“There was always something else, something too demanding.” Nicole shrugged, resigned. “Demons, witches, whatever. It’s this town. I know, it’s a crap reason and I am really really sorry, Waves.”

Waverly’s eyes flicked over her face. After a moment, Nicole saw acceptance, and it almost made her sag with the release of a tension she didn’t know she was holding. Waverly murmured, “Yeah, I know. It’s okay.”

Emboldened, Nicole pressed as far as she dared. “And then, there was another reason I was waiting, I was waiting for something else.”

“Yeah? What’s that?” Waverly asked.

“We’ve been separated for two years now, but never filed for divorce, because it’s an _incredible_ hassle. We could get married in one day for a few bucks, but a divorce means lawyers and headache and is way too expensive.” It infuriated Nicole. She suffered neither stupidity nor injustice gladly, and she thought the whole subject was full of both of those things. “It makes no flippin’ sense to me. But the last time I spoke to Shae, I asked her if it was okay if we looked into getting it started.”

Waverly’s eyes never drifted away from hers. She asked, a bit breathless, “Why?”

“I think you can figure that one out, Waverly Earp.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love these characters so much.
> 
> Finding out this particular bit of Nicole Haught's history was surprising but not a huge shock to me - we all have things in our past, do we not? If she had a serious relationship that hadn't worked out, I would expect she'd still be friendly with her ex and not rock the boat. She's steady like that, I think.
> 
> I wrote an earlier version of this story, trying out a different format, which just didn't work. Eh, sometimes it's a swing and a miss, but I liked the idea enough to make another attempt. This is the result. If you read the first version, and have gotten this far on the redo, thank you so much for giving it another try.


End file.
